with those wings in your spine
by someofusare
Summary: No FTL Storybrooke AU. Sleeping Hook with a side dish of Frankenwolf and Snowing. One-shot. "He's the escape, the guy who no one wants to be around too long for fear of catching his back luck. He is not some pretty society girl's charity case." A story of loss, pain, forgiveness, and learning to never judge a book by its cover.


"rings of flowers 'round your eyes and i'll love you for the rest of your life when you're ready" two headed boy part 2 by neutral milk hotel

When Killian Jones is a child, when his mother is still in love and her wrists are white and smooth, his father reads him stories about fantasy worlds. Stories about brave knights are always his favorite, their polished armor and gleaming swords, his father's smoky voice narrating how their cleverness and courage leads them to victory and, of course, wins them the love of a beautiful maiden.

When his father, his hair thinning and glasses bent, gets sick for the first time, Killian doesn't think anything of it. His dad, the man with silver tie clips and words like gravel, is stronger than any abnormal cells. When he gets sick again, and his hair is no longer only thinning and he stops wearing ties altogether and his words can't push past the tumor in his throat, Killian knows that there will be no more stories about brave knights and fair princesses. His mother reads him a fairy tale on the night his father dies, and he thinks that losing him might be like losing a limb, that moving on would be like replacing a hand with a rusting, metal hook. She asks him to never grow up, tears in her gray eyes, and he promises that he won't. This is the first lie Killian tells his mother (though it certainly isn't the last).

She lays on the hospital bed and weeps, her shoulder blades as thin and sharp as knives, curving like wings on her back.

Mom gets sick too, a year later when Killian turns twelve, although this is a different kind of illness, one that she won't go to the doctors for, one that keeps her out too late on a Wednesday night and makes her take strange men up to her bedroom. The only evidence that anything is wrong are the tiny, red puncture marks underneath her gold charm bracelet (the one his father gave her on their wedding night) and her increasingly prominent collarbone.

When he is seventeen, his father's sister comes to stay with them for the first time since his death. Despite Killian's pleas with her to not say anything, his mother leaves to go to rehab and Killian is placed in the care of his aunt, the woman who forgot they existed for six years. Every morning he wakes up in California instead of England is like saltwater in his mouth and in his throat, filling up and spilling over.

His mother gets out of rehab briefly before overdosing in a strange flat in London (her dealer's, they tell him) two months before his graduation. After high school, he stays in Los Angeles ("the city of assholes," he names it privately) but leaves his aunt. She seems grateful, more than anything, for the lifted weight of responsibility for another human being. He gets a job as a bartender and goes to community college. He continues living because he feels obligated, because there's no one left to mourn them and if he can't then no one will.

At night, he can still hear his father's voice, telling him the most beautiful stories, when the moon is nowhere in the sky.

* * *

He gets involved with a married woman, so there's that.

She is older by a few years, the wife of a meek man whose only sin is cowardice, and she wants a fling with the kind of guy who's supposed to be dangerous, so she settles for the only Brit (besides her Scottish husband) in California. Milah Gold is a beautiful woman, though, and soon Killian realizes that he has fallen in love with her. And that's good, for a while. She is clever and ruthless and passionate and all she wants is to escape which is, after all, all Killian really wants too.

Mr. Gold runs into a bit (a lot) of money and becomes a business tycoon, and somehow that changes him. When Killian serves him drinks at the bar, he has to suppress the shiver that runs through his spine every time he thinks the man will see through him and know exactly who is fucking his wife. Milah becomes less and less subtle, grabbing at his forearm across the bar top when she thinks her husband isn't looking and planning daytime trysts at her own home. When she turns up dead in an alley in the bad part of LA, no one questions it. Everyone knows that Mr. Gold has long since left that meek little man behind, his new laugh frightening, his new eyes blank and merciless.

In a fit of young, reckless ignorance and blind rage, Killian steals his friend's sawed-off shotgun and confronts the crocodile who murdered the woman he loves. Mr. Gold only chuckles, tells him to leave town, and gently pushes him out of the door. Killian almost shoots him then and there, but he hears a childish giggle upstairs.

"Bae's home?" he asks, almost desperately.

Mr. Gold looks at him with confusion written on his brow. "Today's Saturday."

Killian will be damned if another child has to be an orphan, and he runs from the grandiose house, never stopping to look behind him.

(Killian sees Gold years later, when the thought of revenge has long since left his mind. Bae has a family of his own, a lovely blonde and a precocious toddler at his side. Gold looks a little like his old self, though still maintaining a shark-like hostility about him. A much younger woman with eyes as clear as diamonds stands at his side, and she looks at him like she knows everything about him and forgives him anyway. Gold looks at her like she is the sun. Killian nods at him from across the street, and Gold returns the gesture. Milah stills hangs like a wrecking ball between them, but Killian finds that he doesn't feel the burning anger he used to when he thought of Gold. He doesn't break any whiskey glasses when he gets home and calls it progress.)

He leaves California and tells himself the sun was making him sick. He moves to coastal Maine, as far from that haunted city as possible, where the sky is the color of home and the air tastes like sea salt and ice.

* * *

Living in a small college town is not as boring as it may seem. Killian manages to make a few acquaintances, and he gets a job as a waiter and bartender at a small family-owned combination diner/bed and breakfast. The only other server, Ruby Lucas, is the owner's granddaughter, a pretty little number with red hair dye and mini-everything, and despite being stunningly attractive he doesn't make a move (mostly because Granny scares the hell out of him and he once saw her with a fucking crossbow).

Ruby becomes his friend after she assesses that he really isn't trying to get in her pants, and work becomes a little easier after that. She makes good company, especially since most of the time it seems like she doesn't really want to be there either. The school nearby, University of Storybrooke (a ridiculously trite name, he considers), results in good business, since college students love food that isn't frozen and drinks that aren't ten dollars. Most of the time when they're working, he catches Ruby looking at the customers wistfully, like she wishes she could join their secret club but doesn't know the handshake.

He asks her once why she never went to college, and she simply replies, "I had to stay." He thinks her answer might mean that Granny had no one else and that he's not the only one in the world who's lost someone, but he never asks again to confirm his suspicions.

For six months his life is normal, no midday rendezvous, no threat of being caught hanging over his head, no coming home to his mother with her pupils too big and her nails carving circles into her arms. He wakes in the morning, goes to work, goes home, and goes to sleep, day in and day out.

Six months after he moves, when even the Maine sun is making its way through the clouds, coating the streets with watery light, Ruby tells him that she will finally be attending college after three years of waiting.

"Locally," she assures him, "I can't leave you here all alone, can I? And I'll be around more often than not. We'll stay friends, Killian. I promise."

He suspects her motivation to finally get her life back on track after Granny's heart attack might have something to do with the recent attention she has been receiving from the only doctor in town, but he also knows that she deserves to move on, for whatever reason. She spends the rest of the summer coaching him on how to use the register properly and how to prepare for opening in the morning and what to do when he is the only one on hand during the lunch rush. When Dr. Whale shows up more and more often for morning coffee and less and less for a late night drink, and Ruby gives him that bright smile she reserves for when she is really happy, well. Killian knows that feeling, doesn't he?

The fall comes too quickly, the leaves turning red and then drifting down to the concrete, the air biting cold.

* * *

The first time Ruby shows up at the diner again, in mid-December, he almost doesn't recognize her. She has been growing out the dye in the hair, so it is darker than he has ever seen it, and she doesn't wear the bright red lipstick and cat eyeliner anymore. He can finally see her face, which he likes. He does miss the short shorts and half-shirts, though, which have been replaced with jeans and slouchy sweatshirts. He brightens when she pushes her way through the crowd to hug him hello, before she immediately spins on her heel to find someone else.

"Looking for the good doctor?" he teases, nudging her side with his elbow. "He doesn't come in here as much since you left. I can give him a call if you like, though. We've become grand friends since you left."

"You did not, Killian Jones."

"Did too. His buddy Jefferson still terrifies the bejesus out of me, but we go out sometimes. It's not the same without you, Red."

"I know," she tosses out, flipping her long hair behind her shoulder. "Oh, come here, you need to meet my friends from school. They're my age, even if they're a couple of grades ahead, so don't worry about any fake IDs." She forcibly drags him by the arm to her table, which is surrounded by loud, excited twentysomethings, giving the whole area the impression of being too small to contain them. "This is Mary Margaret," a pixie-like brunette in a pastel cardigan, "David," her boyfriend, judging by his arm around her, a classically handsome preppie, "Mulan," a serene and beautiful Chinese girl, who is significantly more dignified than everyone else (he would have to take note of her), "Ashley," a bubblegum blonde, who is currently making out with, "her boyfriend Sean, and then Phillip," obviously well-bred, most likely from money, "and Rory. Er, Aurora, I guess. What do you want to be called?"

"Aurora's fine," the girls replies, reaching out her hand for Killian to shake. He complies, weighing her tiny hand with his own before dropping his arm to the side again. She takes her boyfriend's elbow (what was his name? Fred? Ferdinand?) before resuming the conversation the rest of the table had carried on without her.

"So that's everyone! Everyone, this is my friend, Killian!" He's acknowledged with a chorus of "hellos" and "heys" and one drawn out "hiiiii!" from Ashley. Just shoot him now.

"Killian," Ruby whispers angrily, poking his side, "be nice." So apparently he said that last part out loud because suddenly the table looks much more hostile, the girl on the end (did she want to be called Rory or Aurora? oh, sod it.) looking like she may have genuine hurt in her eyes.

"Oh. Sorry." Even to his own ears it sounds stupid. But the group seems to buy it, and he is distracted by the bell chiming at the entrance to the diner anyway. "Vic! So you finally decided to show."

Whale looks as annoyed by the sight of rambunctious coeds as Killian feels, calling out to him, "God, Killer, I leave for ten minutes to get my keys and you destroy the whole damn establishment."

"I thought you said he wasn't here!"

"I lied. Victor! Look who's finally back!"

Victor freezes for a minute, just standing in the doorway holding a set of house keys, before pushing around the table and walking up to Ruby. "Hey. You're back."

"Yeah."

The word is apparently enough to shock Victor back into action, because the next second he has his arms wrapped around her waist, moving one hand up to grasp the end of her ponytail. "You grew your hair out."

"Yeah I did," she replies, laughing a little at the look of surprise crossing his features.

"You look so different, wow. I love it!"

"Good, I'd be disappointed if you only liked me for my eyeliner."

"Of course not, Ruby. God, it's great to see you. How's college life?"

"Sorry," Killian interrupts, "but can we get on with it? I still have to take orders, and I need this reunion to happen later than now."

"Yeah, yeah." Victor gives Ruby an awkward pat on the back before mouthing "help me" to him and taking a seat at the bar. Killian quickly takes the orders for the table and gives them to the kitchen before looping back around behind the bar and facing his friend.

"What's wrong?"

"She's back, what do I do?"

"Okay, here's what you say: 'Hey Ruby, long time no see. How's life treating you? Hey, here's a thought! We should shag because I've been pining over you since I started drinking at this godforsaken place.' Man up, Vic. She wants you. All you have to do is ask."

"All he has to do is ask what?" Ruby sidles up beside Whale, and Killian smirks. So obvious. He leaves the two to play catch up, and checks on the rest of the room. When he comes back, something has clearly changed because Victor is grasping at the large red belt on Ruby's waist and she is apparently attempting to suck his face off.

"Typical," he says, loud enough that they jump apart guiltily.

"I should go," Victor says a little awkwardly.

"Yeah, me too." Ruby grabs his hand and laughs, and the pair exit the diner together more quickly than Killian thought humanly possible.

He chuckles, taking the platter of orders from the kitchen and bringing them over to "coed corner" as he decides to call it. Only Mary Margaret looks him in the eye and thanks him, her long eyelashes batting against her skin. He can see why her boyfriend can't seem to take his eyes off of her.

He spends the rest of the night walking back and forth between the kitchen and then cleaning up after the students' mess. They laugh a little too loudly, and he rolls his eyes up to the ceiling. When he goes home again and shuts off the light, he pretends that Milah is there with him and falls asleep to the memory of her voice.

* * *

He asks Ruby the next time she is back at the diner (which becomes more frequent) whether or not Mulan is worth a go.

"She's single, but I'd avoid that. She's kind of in love with Phillip."

"The little one's boyfriend?"

"Yeah. He and Aurora have been together since high school, but Mulan has a bit of a crush. She's been pining over him since she met him."

"Oh. Well, there goes that idea."

The winter is getting progressively colder, which Killian didn't actually think was possible. Ruby's little friend group comes into the diner more often, give or take Ashley and her boyfriend, who appear to be attached by the mouth. Mulan always seems to be the odd one out, the single one in a group of only couples, so Killian takes to talking to her when he takes their orders. She does not appreciate his sense of humor fully but does enjoy the relief from having to watch Phillip and Aurora fawn over each other. He finds that he likes her as a person now, which leads him to realize that perhaps a relationship with her is not the best idea. She's too serious, too studious. She almost never smiles, except at Phillip.

(Killian secretly wonders how Phillip and Aurora don't see how in love with him she is. But then, maybe they do and just can't bring themselves to talk about it. Killian understands that, too, the not talking.)

(Soon, though, the whole lot of them, with their not seeing or not talking, make him sick. He finds that the more often they come in the angrier he is.)

Victor comes into the diner whenever Ruby does, so Killian is happy for that. Jefferson stills scares him, but at some point he meets his daughter, Grace, and then can't find it in himself to dislike the man anymore.

(He sometimes imagines a world where he could be Bae's father, and he and Milah could be happy together, but then Granny yells at him or Victor smirks or a tiny brunette laughs a lilting musical laugh, and he comes back to earth with a bump.)

One night, just after closing since Ruby lets her little group stay in the diner for a little bit more, Aurora comes over to the bar and lingers longer than necessary. Killian mistakes that for a come on, used to years of women throwing themselves at him while their husbands play pool. He winks at her, while she merely looks taken aback.

"What's your name?" she asks, with a brilliant smile. "I'm Aurora."

"Killian Jones," he replies, using his sexiest voice. "How are you, sweetheart?"

"Um. Yeah, I'm fine, I guess. Listen, we come here all the time, and I wanted to know if you wanted to come hang out with us. We're going back to the dorms for a...party?" She ends the statement likes its a question, less sure of herself as time passes. "I'm sorry I never asked before, but since Ruby spends most of her time here with Victor I figured you could use a friend."

Killian almost doesn't process what she's saying before he understands full force. The thought that she feels sorry for him makes him want to scream. He's the escape, the guy who no one wants to be around too long for fear of catching his bad luck. He is not some pretty society girl's charity case.

"Sorry, princess, but I don't really do that scene."

She shakes her head in confusion, a few light curls coming loose from her braid. "What scene, exactly?"

"Oh, you know. Drunken college escapades." (He should've let it stop there, but Killian has a habit of never stopping until everyone around him is as ripped up as he is.) "Cute little stories to tell the grandkids. It's not like you lot could keep up with me anyway, could you?"

"Excuse me?" She looks offended and a little annoyed, the exact reaction he expected from her type, and for some reason that makes Killian more vindictive.

"You don't know anything about real life, do you, pet? Just wandering through with your perfect little boyfriend and your perfect little clothes, don't care who you stomp on along the way. I bet you still read your fairy tales and pretend like he's your knight in shining armor, come to save the day. I got news for you, darling. It's a lie. So why don't you go back to your little friends and your little classes and leave. Me. Alone. Come back when you can understand reality."

Sometime during his rant, Killian can feel his voice getting louder until he is basically shouting. The diner has gone quiet, and Phillip is on his way over to do something (Killian can't decide between a punch or a speech).

"What did you say to my girlfriend?" He can see behind Phillip that Ruby looks disappointed (she heard the stories one night when he got drunk after closing). Victor looks sympathetic and sad (he kind of agrees about the obnoxious college students, and he's heard this spiel before, on nights when Killian feels like his chest might cave in it's so empty).

"You heard me," Killian snarls, more and more certain of his point. "You children don't know anything about pain, about loss. You say you want to be my friends, all you want is something new to play with. The new escape, the dangerous Englishman, come to make your lives more interesting. He's got no parents, how fascinating! He's got no friends, let's go talk to him! You lot are _truly_ repellent and...and it's after closing so I'd appreciate it if you all would just leave so I can close up." He turns around, certain that he's just signed his warrant for death by Ruby.

"That's what this is about?" Aurora's small voice says in shock behind him, and he faces her. "You just said all of those horrible things because my _body count_ isn't as high as yours?" She leans in close, her eyes just inches from his. He notices suddenly that they are too wide and innocent for her features, are as light and blue and tumultuous as the sea. "You don't know _anything_ about me."

Suddenly, Killian feels more sick with himself than with her as she gazes at him with an expression of unbearable revulsion. He quietly grabs his coat to leave and thinks that's the end of it until Phillip rears back and hurls his fist at his nose (so a punch, then). Only Ruby, Victor, Aurora, and Phillip had stayed behind to watch the massacre, and now Ruby yells something out as she and Victor pull Phillip off of him. He has somehow managed to pull Killian over the bar top and is ready to crush, kill, destroy when Ruby appears in front of his face, as beautiful and vengeful as a goddess.

"What the fuck, Killian?" she snarls as Victor says, "Calm down, Killer." He can hear the bell chime and knows that the little prince and his girl are gone, so he sits up even as he feels the warm rush of a nosebleed. When he puts his hand to his face and inspects the blood covering his fingers, he thinks suddenly of Milah, how he never saw the body, how he only saw the picture of the hole in her head.

He stands slowly, shrugging off Ruby's hand on his shoulder, and pushes past Victor to leave. He walks home, even though he drove his car to work. The night sky is darker than he's ever seen it, only two lonely stars shining in the North.

* * *

Work continues after what Victor has taken to calling "the incident." Ruby still visits, but less often at the diner, and her friends avoid the place like its diseased. Granny whacks him with a spoon when she hears what happened, though she can't be too angry since it was after closing and no one else saw it. Killian has to actively force himself to forget Aurora's face when he shouted at her.

(He sometimes has dreams that make him wake up in a cold sweat at night, dreams of the young girl dying the way Milah did, in a dark alley where no one would find her still blushing body.)

He tries to apologize to Aurora a few weeks after that night, when he sees her from across the street, but she simply shakes her head and says softly, "It's okay-." He doesn't fail to notice the way she stops herself before she says his name.

When Killian punches the mirror in his apartment, and his hand splits open all along the knuckles, well. No one notices, do they?

Life goes on.

* * *

Killian doesn't really know when his nightmares stop consisting of Milah's temples and his mothers arms and start consisting of blue eyes as endless as the sky, but he is almost grateful for the change. Sometimes, he feels guilty for the way he's letting go of Milah, but other times he knows that she would want that for him anyway.

He barely notices when winter turns to spring, the flowers blooming likes bruises on the trees.

* * *

His birthday comes and goes. He gets a day off from Granny, a hug and a knitted scarf from Ruby, an awkward pat on the back and a paperboy hat from Jefferson, and a card and a bottle of wine from Victor. He has a small party at the diner after hours, his few friends circling the chocolate cake and empty bottles of beer littering the tables. He can't ignore the gaping hole in his stomach that comes from the missing faces (_one, two, three_), but he feels happier than he has in a while.

When he goes home and sees a copy of the collected fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson with a post-it on top reading, "You could use them," he wonders how she knew that about him.

* * *

It's raining the day he hears about the accident, the kind of storm that he's only seen once before, the water coming down so hard it seems like the sun will never shine again. Ruby comes charging into the diner an hour after closing, pale-faced and soaking wet, followed closely by Victor, whose jaw is set in the tense line he reserves only for the hospital. At first, he doesn't notice that Ruby is crying, but when she runs up to him and envelops him in a hug with her surprising strength, he can feel her shuddering from racking sobs.

"Ruby? What's wrong? Is it Granny? What happened?"

She only hugs him tighter and cries harder, until Victor clears his throat and whispers hoarsely, "It's, uh. Phillip. He's." For a second he looks about to crack too, the restraint he has coming only from a background in delivering bad news. "He's dead, Killian. Car accident."

Killian spends the next few days rereading "The Little Mermaid," trying to ignore the knot behind his ribs that won't seem to untangle. He thinks that maybe Phillip had a soul that went up to heaven, too.

* * *

He doesn't see Aurora until the funeral, which Ruby insisted he attend. Despite the fact that he believes the man hated him until his dying day, she explains that everyone needs a familiar face who's not actively grieving. Victor rubs slow circles on Ruby's back during the ceremony, and all Killian can think about is the fact that he hasn't been in a church since his mother.

The service is like any other of its kind. The eulogies are sincere but cliche. The flowers are roses, apparently Aurora's favorite. Everyone looks upset, most people are crying, and Mulan breaks his heart, standing stiff, determined not to let it show how deeply it hurts her to lose him.

When Phillip is lowered into the ground, his black coffin shining like a bullet, Killian can see Aurora across the pit. She looks emptied out, like there's no one left inside to cry because everything she ever was is buried by six feet of earth.

(Killian wonders if that's how he looked after his father, after his mother, after Milah. Then he thinks that maybe he doesn't really want to know that after all.)

The sky is as bleak and bright as it always is, and the trees all bend toward the hole in the ground like they were pushed by the force of the wind. Killian knows that no grass will grow on the site for a while, that the newness of his death is as obvious as the overturned dirt on his grave.

(He doesn't quite understand why his parents wanted him to be laid to rest so far from home. He thinks it's because they understand that his home is here now.)

He walks home too slowly, his shoes tracking mud on the sidewalk, his eyes blinded by the white clouds.

* * *

Looking back, Killian should've expected something like it to happen.

A month after the accident, Aurora stands in the entrance to the diner at 7, an hour before opening, slamming her little fists against the glass door, her mouth set in an angry, determined line. Killian walks over and opens the door to the diner, praying that she isn't coming over to confront him.

Instead, she stumbles in reeking of whiskey (Killian's almost impressed that she had the resolution to get herself drunk off of such a hard alcohol) and nearly topples over into him.

"How many?" she pleads, as if he'll know exactly what she's asking. "_How many?_"

"How many what?" Killian can feel her spine through the thin cloth covering her back and wonders if she was always this thin.

"How many people died? How many people you loved?"

He grinds his teeth and tenses his entire body. He moves her upright even as he says quietly, "Three."

"Fantastic. I'm approximately 33 percent closer to becoming just like you, Killian Jones. Soon, we'll have a fighting shot at being acquaintances." She wobbles slightly before leaning all of her weight back and slapping him.

"Damn it! What is it with college students and hitting me in the face?"

She giggles once, a high, empty sound, and wrenches something off her hand, throwing it on the ground before leaving the diner as quickly as she came.

When he finishes cleaning the room, he sees a silver circle on the linoleum tile, and picks it up. A promise ring.

He spends the rest of the day trying not to vomit in the bathroom.

* * *

Ruby and Victor spend most of their summer at the diner, avoiding all of their friends as much as possible and pretending like the world doesn't exist. They were both friends with Phillip, but neither was particularly close to him and don't want to intrude on everyone's time of grief by pretending they knew him more than they did. Killian never tells them about the ring, about the fact that even now he has no idea what to do with it.

(He sometimes spins the little piece of silver on the tops of his knuckles, wondering when she decided that any reminder of her love was a bad one.)

He spends his nights writing out the words that he never did before, things about Milah and his parents. He finds that he has some semblance of talent for something other than bar tending.

The days burn on, the sun so hot even the cicadas refuse to sing.

* * *

When the fall semester starts (Killian didn't even notice that the days were getting colder, only realized when Ruby started talking about getting ready for school), there seems to be an air of dreariness coating the campus. At first, not as many customers come into the restaurant, but soon there's as many people as before.

The first time he sees Ruby's friends, just before Halloween, he's shocked. Though there's an empty space where Phillip should be (one that no one fills by an unspoken agreement), everyone seems to be trying, trying so hard to make up for it. Ashley and her boyfriend (Killian never can remember his name) apparently graduated and went to Boston, so Ruby invites Killian to sit down next to the new guy.

Mulan introduces him as Shang, someone she met through the Asian American youth group she decided to join on a whim for her last year. Killian decides that he likes him, as serious and calm as he is. He and Mulan are well suited for each other.

(Honestly though, Killian is just happy that she's moving on. He knows what it's like to never truly be able to mourn the one you love when you never really had them in the first place.)

Aurora is noticeably quieter than she was last year, but she doesn't seem as thin as she did the last time he saw her. Mary Margaret and David lead the conversation, making sure to include Shang, Mulan, Aurora, and even Killian, as much as possible.

(Killian wonders why he never noticed that they were such genuinely good people, why he never even questioned his assessment that they were all spoiled brats who couldn't make it in the real world.)

Right before they all leave, Killian manages to pull Aurora aside and close her slender fingers around the promise ring she never picked up, the ring that he's been carrying in his wallet since her breakdown.

"I think you're ready to have this back, princess," he says with a slight smile. She doesn't open her palm until she is outside and looks back at his face with a question written in her eyes. Killian merely shrugs and waves one hand.

He pretends not to notice that the smile she gives him is the brightest he's seen from her all night.

* * *

The winter seems warmer than it did last year, but Killian still manages to make use of the scarf Ruby knitted him and the hat that Jefferson made (why the man never made a business selling hats he'll never know). Victor teases him for looking like a hipster right up until Killian threatens to cut off his access to all coffee at the diner. Victor, who had managed to replace his massive intakes of alcohol with caffeine, immediately stops making fun.

Killian spends his down time at the diner writing, stunned to find that the more he puts onto paper the more he finds in himself to say. He talks about Milah, about his parents, about how cursed California is now and how he can never again live in such a beautiful place, how Gold sounded when he laughed at him for the last time, how Aurora's voice cracked when she asked him her final question. He asks everyone for their stories one by one, shocked to find that maybe they need to let them out, too.

"My dad left when I was ten, he was always a deadbeat-"

"My daughter, Ruby's mother, was alone, I had to step up-"

"My father was so disappointed in me, always so disappointed, and I hated it-"

"Alice left so fast, just took all of her things and left me and Grace-"

"My parents were so strict, honor for the family, always honorable, always them before anything, before _myself_-"

"My father, the General, only wanted what was best for me, but he never wanted what I thought was right-"

"My stepmother hated me, my dad never saw any of it, he was so blinded by her beauty-"

"I never met my parents, they died when I was a baby, and they left me everything, my godfather raised me and _god_, but he hated me-"

"My mom died when I was fifteen, she OD'ed in the one of the empty rooms upstairs, Granny found her-"

"She was always too wild, always looking for the best high she could, and she never even considered my Ruby-"

"My brother was the one, the golden child, and I killed him, I was so wasted, _god_, I was so wasted-"

"She's still so young and I still have no idea what to tell her about her mom and Grace needs someone she can _talk_ to-"

"I wanted to go to college, but my dad was just fired, and they wanted me to stay-"

"He wanted me to stay in Ohio, go to his alma mater, but I just couldn't, this place is like home-"

"I ran away when I was eighteen, went to David and asked for help, for _anything_-"

"I was so in love with her and she didn't even see it and I still had so much money-"

"I am still just like her, when I started going to school I decided I would change, for Granny, for Victor, for _me_-"

"Ruby's so good, she deserves so much, and she can't find that here, she needs to move on-"

"The blood was everywhere, the car looked like a graveyard, and I just climbed out, just left him there-"

"I keep trying to find someone out there, someone who can be good for me and her but I _can't_-"

"I left, they still don't know where I am, I just want to show them I did it, I made my own money and did it on my own-"

"He threw a fit, but my mom made him let me go, and we still haven't spoken, I stay here all year round-"

"My dad died last year, but she still has all the money and I can't ask David for that-"

"I'll give her anything, _anything_, and my godfather hates her but he can't touch the inheritance and it's _mine_ now-"

"I'm different now. I'm better. I will not be like her, and people know that now."

"I just want her to be happy. I'm so proud of her. But, god, I miss my daughter."

"I thought if I became a doctor I could help people, for Gerhardt, but I was so depressed. Ruby saved me, she stopped me from drowning, literally and figuratively. It's a long story."

"I know we'll be okay. We always are. And even if I can't replace Alice, even if I'm alone for the rest of my life, at least I have my little girl."

"I'll go home when it's over. I still send cards. I'll be better, and I'll make enough money to make everyone's lives better again. I'm going to save _everyone_."

"My dad will never think that I'm good enough. But you know what? Fuck him. This is for me. And he can take me or leave me. I just wish he could love me the way he should."

"I love him. We can be happy together, right? We don't need money, just a little love. And we'll make it."

"I have everything I need. I have Mary Margaret and enough money to last us the next couple of years at least. I'm going to ask her to marry me after graduation, and we can start again."

"I'm from Arizona originally. My parents were so loving, so nice, I had the best childhood. When I was eleven I was in a car accident, just like Phillip. I was in a coma for two years, and no one thought I would wake up. It was so horrible, it was like I was trying to move, trying to speak, but I couldn't. I never slept then, not really. For weeks after I woke up I had these horrible dreams. And now I don't have any dreams at all.

"Phillip and I started dating in high school, when we were seniors. He was so pretty, even then, he used to get mad at me for telling him that. He called me Princess of the Sands and the Desert to get back at me, wrote it in all his letters. He wrote me love letters. We went to the same school on accident, applied in secret, accepted in secret, wanted to make sure we weren't going for each other. But it was fate, he said. I never believed in fate, but he was so beautiful and I guess it kinda _was_ meant to be.

"I really hate Arizona now, it's too dry there. He's everywhere I look. He's on the street where we met, in my house, where we first kissed, he's in the fucking air...

"I like the sea now. I used to like the desert, but I think I need the water now. It's so blue here. The air here feels like salt and ice and it's always so cold. I think I need that. I think I'm doing better now. I think I'll get through this, even if he's gone. Is this enough material, do you need anything else?"

"No," Killian replies, snapping off the tape recorder. "That's all I needed."

* * *

He's almost unsurprised to find that even with her heart broken, her love buried, Aurora still manages to be a good person, doesn't let the grief that was always on the edge of consuming him take her over. He's also a little shocked to discover that even though they sometimes annoy him with their niceness and innocence, he actually enjoys hanging out with the little group of coeds.

When he sits down to write, he's glad that he asked everyone their stories because suddenly he can see why people always said that you should never judge a book by its cover. He finds that he can create characters as well as simply talk about himself, that he can figure out what situations to put them in, what backgrounds to give them, that he's actually beginning to "find his passion" as he once heard Mary Margaret calling it.

He also discovers that what he looks forward to the most is when everyone splits off into couples and he and Aurora can just _talk_.

"I just finished reading _Jane Eyre_. It's my new favorite book. 'I am no bird,' god, I love that line! Oh, did you ever reads those fairy tales I gave you?"("Yeah, I read them.")

"Do you think you're over Milah? If you are, how does it feel? I want to know when I'll know I'm ready to move on." ("I think I'm finally starting to move on. It feels like you're ten pounds lighter, like you can finally breathe again. You'll know when you're ready.")

"Thank you, by the way, for giving me my ring. I spent so long trying to work up the courage to ask for it back." ("You're welcome, princess.")

Aurora goes on a couple of dates in March, at everyone's behest, and even enjoys a few of them (though Killian always feels an inexplicable knot in his gut whenever she tells the group about them). He pretends not to notice that his two leads in the story he's working on are beginning to seem more and more like reflections of Aurora and himself.

Graduation day is both the happiest and saddest day of the year. Ruby still has two more years left in school, earning her degree in kinesiology, but Mulan, Shang, Mary Margaret, David, and Aurora are all moving on. Killian stands with Victor and Ruby in the crowd, trying to ignore how Ruby's shameless weeping is a bit like how he feels too.

Granny insists on hosting a party at the diner, for all the graduating students during the day and then a private one for just them after hours.

Mulan explains how she'll be going back home to Seattle to show her family her degree in business, how she's already secured a job in Ohio with a starting salary big enough to save their house from foreclosure. Shang will wait for her there, and they will continue their relationship with or without his father's approval.

David proposes to Mary Margaret at two in the morning, getting down on one knee and presenting her with his mother's ring. Killian's not shocked that she starts crying before shouting "yes, of course." David excitedly informs everyone that they are staying in Storybrooke, where Mary Margaret will work at the elementary school while getting her Master's in education, and he will start training to be the deputy sheriff.

Aurora quietly states that she's going to stay in Storybrooke, too, having found a job at the hospital with her nursing degree. Victor smiles smugly at Ruby when she starts screeching about how she'll still have at least some of her friends.

When Killian walks Aurora home, she kisses him on the cheek with a small, "thanks for listening," before quickly disappearing into her dorm room.

He can still smell her perfume on his clothes when he gets home, a flowery lavender scent that he would hate on anyone but her.

* * *

The cicadas make up for their silence last year with a vengeance, constantly buzzing underneath Killian's feet as he walks to work. Aurora in the summer is a sight to behold, hair in a braided bun away from her neck, her throat as white as doves. Ruby smirks whenever she catches him staring, and Victor teases him for his crush even more than he did for the paperboy hat.

Mary Margaret and David come in more often than not to plan their wedding, asking Ruby, Victor, and Aurora for help. (Killian offers his assistance, once, before realizing that perhaps he's not the best person for the job. Aurora makes fun of him for days following his explosion in the florist's shop about the fact that_ there's no bloody difference between lavender and violet, damn you all to hell!_)

The two end up setting the date for January, both of them insisting that they love snow more than the spring anyway. Aurora makes no secret of her disagreement, citing the fact that she wants to have a wedding without wearing a mink coat over her gown, thank you very much. Killian laughs at her joke just a bit louder than everyone else and wonders when it was he became such a pansy for the tiny woman.

He spends Christmas with the Lucases as he has for the past few years, but this time Mary Margaret, David, Jefferson, and Aurora join them. He gets more presents that day than he has since his father died (one of them being a cream-colored Aran sweater that he wears proudly for the rest of the winter).

He finishes his manuscript two weeks before the wedding. He had decided to take a cue from Aurora and rewrite a fairy tale. He has honestly no idea how he came up with half of what he wrote, since the character mixture was so ridiculous. Frankenstein, the Mad Hatter, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, the Evil Queen, the Woman Warrior, Sleeping Beauty, and his lead Captain Hook.

When he shows Aurora his finished work, what he doesn't expect is for her to return it to him after only three days.

"I loved it," she says excitedly, bouncing up and down slightly at his door before darting around him into his apartment. "How did you come up with that stuff? Who's Hook based on? And Sleeping Beauty? She was my favorite. Are you gonna try to get this published?"

"How did you read that so quickly?"

"I like books. Now answer my questions, I don't have all day." She taps her foot pointedly, looking at his face while she waits for an answer.

"Honestly, it was you. I got to thinking about fairy tales, and how the stories are everywhere, even now. I wanted to see how they would all interact together."

"So did you base any of the characters off of us?"

"Yeah, I did," Killian says gently, tapping on the pages, "Mary Margaret and David are Snow White and Prince Charming, Mulan and Shang are the warriors, Victor's Frankenstein, Ruby is Red Riding Hood, Jefferson is the Mad Hatter, even Ashley and what's-his-name are Cinderella and the prince."

"So? Who am I?" Aurora gazes at him expenctantly.

"You're Sleeping Beauty, of course, you were in a bloody coma."

"Yessss." Aurora pumps her little fist in victory even as Killian laughs at her.

"God, I love you." He can feel himself cringing even as he says it, the syllables coming forward like a train crash, unable to be stopped.

Aurora simply stares at him even as he tries to cover up, to explain. "I'm sorry, god, I don't know why I fucking said that. Not to say I don't love you, I do. Wait, _fuck. _Okay." He pauses, trying to steady his breath. "I didn't plan on telling you that, not for a while, if ever. But I do. I love you. You're clever and witty and so, so _good_. You took me down a peg even when you didn't know me. Even after Phillip, you never let it stop you, not like I did with Milah. You understand me, and I like to think I understand you. And you're so beautiful, you always are. And I love you. And I'm sorry I'm ruining everything, I have a habit of doing that. But I guess I just needed to say it." It's like the air in the room has gone still after his little speech, only the shock in Aurora's eyes keeping him from running away, the way he always does.

"Okay. I love you, too." Killian is not quite sure he heard that correctly even as she continues. "I have for a while. Not when Phillip was-well, alive. But even then I liked you, even when you were being a jerk. You're so funny and honest and a little bit mean and different from everyone I've ever met. So, I love you, too. There." Aurora shifts on her feet uncomfortably. "So are you gonna say anything?"

Killian can only stare for a minute, before he blurts, "Do you want to go to the wedding with me?"

"Um. Yeah, okay I guess." She smiles, an honest-to-goodness smile, and suddenly Killian is kissing her like he's wanted to since he saw the book of fairy tales on his front step. This little princess who worked her way into his heart simply because she saw him as he was, exactly when he needed it.

After she leaves his apartment to go back home, flushing and slightly mussed, Killian can still feel her lips against his. He glances at the photograph on his bedside table, the one of him and his parents, and thinks that they would like her if they met her.

That night he dreams of the ocean, captaining a ship that sails through the air, as a girl with wings jutting from her spine flies alongside the vessel.

* * *

The wedding is small, only filling up half of the local church, but everyone in the chapel looks so happy, most of all the bride and groom. When Mary Margaret and David kiss for the first time as man and wife, Ruby screams so loud the priest jumps a little. Victor nudges her side with his elbow, laughing at her with mirth in his eyes. Mulan and Shang stand next to Killian and Aurora, in town for the wedding, as Ashley and Sean (Killian finally remembers his name) wave their hands at the married couple from the other aisle.

The reception is held at Granny's since Mary Margaret only agreed to let David pay for the honeymoon. Everyone praises the food loudly, until Granny threatens to whack them with the serving spoon for "tellin' lies." (Killian isn't lying though. He always thought burgers were underrated in terms of their legitimacy as a fine food.)

"Oh my god," Aurora says, falling heavily into her chair next to Killian, "I cannot keep up with Mulan and Shang. Those kung fu classes have really paid off."

Killian only nods his head absentmindedly, gazing at the woman beside him.

"This was a good wedding. I'm happy the flowers finally worked out right. Roses are always the best choice, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Killian agrees, taking her hand in his own. "Roses are _always_ the best choice."

* * *

On the walk home, Killian lifts his eyes to gaze in wonder at the stars as Aurora leans her head on his shoulder. He can hear the music from the diner still playing, knows that Ruby and Victor will be dancing for a while longer. He feels suddenly overwhelmingly happy, like this is where he was always supposed to be, even after everywhere he was before this moment.

The night sky is more brilliant than it has ever been, the moon as wide and wondrous as the sea.


End file.
